[geye1234]

Ok. The three paragraphs beginning "Let me put it this way" are very clear, thank you. And I see that my previous comment was basically me repeating my assertions without further explanation, for which I apologise.

So to summarize where we are at this point, I think we agree on the following (either in reality, or for the sake of argument): - that the First Cause exists, - that it sustains everything else that exists moment-by-moment, and didn't just create everything else and then go away, - that the existence of the lion and gravity are caused by the first cause, and that the existence of the unicorn and anti-gravity are not, - that the laws of physics, along with everything else we observe, are contingent, unlike mathematics and logic; there is no a priori reason that everything we observe is not going to reverse tomororow.

I think the key difference is whether the concept of a unicorn or anti-gravity has existence independent of our minds. My position is that such concepts have existence as concepts, and only as concepts, but that concepts nonetheless are real in a sense. A concept is not an invention of the human mind, but rather is a pre-existing reality that is grasped by the human mind. Given the real existence of concepts, some explanation is needed as to why the concept of a unicorn lacks existence as a concrete object but the concept of a lion has existence as a concrete object. And the same with the concept of gravity vs anti-gravity, and the concept of things behaving according to scientific laws vs popping into existence in violation of physics. Etc.

Whereas your position is that concepts are meaningless, or somehow like 'images' perhaps, or cardboard cut-outs, and perhaps only exist in human minds? And that therefore my position makes no sense. I don't want to mis-represent you, hopefully this is fair. Again, all this links directly to reductionism, since really by 'concept' I mean something like Aristotelian forms, which I think have existence independent of the objects that instantiate them. So I think it really comes down to reductionism.

So onto that topic:

>> The behavior of water cannot be explained by considering the properties of hydrogen and of oxygen > This... is not true.

Agh, you're quoting my sentence without the second half, which makes me sound silly and gives a false impression of what I think. The second half was "and 'combining' them in the way we would to explain the behavior of an artifact." This is the key point: that we can't mentally combine the properties of the parts to explain the properties of the whole, because the properties of the parts no longer exist.

You can perform such an exercise with an artifact. Copper in a computer behaves exactly the same as copper outside a computer. It has been arranged with other things in a certain way, and therefore the behaviour of the computer is 'weakly emergent'. You can explain the computer entirely in terms of the behaviour of its constituent parts. This is not so with hydrogen and water. Hydrogen has lost all its properties when it becomes part of water. (Of course, it has done so because it is bonded in such a way as to make water and therefore can't do what it does in the absence of said bond, but this doesn't undermine the point.) When all a thing's properties cease to exist, we can infer that it hase ceased to exist as a 'thing' in its own right, although it continues to exist in a derivative sense as a part of something else. Similarly, water's properties don't exist partially in each of its constituent elements. It's not as if H makes you partially-wet, and O completes the job. The power of making wet exists only within water as a whole. So similarly, when all of water's properties come into existence when H and O combine, we can infer that a new substance has come into existence.

Obviously we can't say that in no sense can water's properties be explained by its parts. I'm not saying that. Water's wetness can be explained by pointing at its structure. But you will be pointing at water first and foremost, and hydrogen and oxygen only in a derivative sense (because, to repeat, the properties have ceased to exist and therefore we can infer that the substances have ceased to exist as independent things).

> To use words from the book, hydrogen has many potential properties, including burning (which makes it combine with O :)) and being wet (when combined with O). These properties are actualized based on the key ideas of emergence and locality.

Hydrogen has an actual (not potential) property of being burnable. It is potentially burning and thereby ceasing to exist :-). But insofar as it's hydrogen, it can't be wet. It isn't actually wet (like water) or potentially wet. You can't do anything to hydrogen to make it wet. If something is wet, it is not hydrogen. Nor can we say that hydrogen supplies 'part of' the wetness of water and oxygen another 'part'. It is water as a whole that is wet.

Do you agree that hydrogen and oxygen lose all their properties when they become part of water, due to the bond they form? Am I being fair when I say this implies that the substances themselves cease to exist as complete entities, and continue to exist only as part of something else that is now itself the complete entity?

> Where is the circular reasoning?

Would you say a lion is particles arranged in a certain way? I'm not talking about how the lion came into existence (which I think is what you're saying with "physical laws + initial conditions = lion"). If I point at a particular lion and say "what makes it a lion?", what do you say? Many reductionists say that it's a collection of particles arranged in such a way that they're a lion. Would you agree with this? If so I would say this is circular, for the reason given in my previous comment.

[sdht0]

Thank you for detailed response.

> to summarize where we are at this point

I think it's a fair summary, yes. I hope you understand by now my views on the words "sustains" and "caused": (possibly) passive, not active.

> Whereas your position is that concepts are meaningless, or somehow like 'images' perhaps, or cardboard cut-outs, and perhaps only exist in human minds

Ah no. I'll try to clarify.

So what is our overall goal? We exist. We sense a universe. And we're trying to explain where we and this universe came from. By logic, there has to be some First Cause. But we don't know the properties of this First Cause directly. We can only observe the effects and try to surmise what First Cause can consistently explain all the effects we see. Makes sense? Now given our observations, there are multiple hypothesis that fit our observations. Personal God. Impersonal physical laws. Brain in a vat. Simulation in a matrix. Etc etc. I got pulled into this (fun) conversation because the book claimed that it can logically show that the First Cause has to be a personal God. And my attempt has been to show that the questions raised in the book can be explained by impersonal physical laws as well. I'm not saying that the First Cause is definitely impersonal. I'm only claiming that given our current observation as of today, impersonal physical laws can explain all of our observations and we don't need the personal God hypothesis to explain anything (logically). Only by including observations such as divine resurrection does a personal God make sense, but that is beyond the scope of the book (and hence I've tried to stay away from in this conversation, even though it does interest me to know your views on that aspect as well).

> I think the key difference is whether the concept of a unicorn or anti-gravity has existence independent of our minds.

Okay so regarding the concepts. I definitely agree that concepts exist outside human minds. That's what I mean by logical possibilities. Now I said that impersonal physical laws can explain the universe we see. Imagine instead that there was no universe. No First Cause. Nothing. And yet, all logical possibilities, including entirety of mathematics, would still "exist". So taking the physical laws of our universe as an axiom, the entire history of our universe would still logically exist (think of it as sort of a blueprint or wireframe), right? And in this ghost universe, lions will "exist" and unicorns won't. Do you see what I mean? The concept of a lion is not contingent on actual instantiation, but definitely needs the logical axioms of a universe.

> > If I point at a particular lion and say "what makes it a lion?, what do you say?"

To take another example, it is hard to imagine what the concept of a triangle would mean without first assuming the axioms of geometry, including points and straight lines. Triangles depends on those base concepts and exist in this larger world of geometry. Similarly, I'm saying to explain "what makes it a lion?", it is both necessary and sufficient to state the physical laws + initial conditions of our universe, not instantiated but logically. And as soon as we state the axioms, the corresponding ghost universe will naturally contain in it life and evolution and lions by logical implication. In this sense, lions exist outside human minds, not independently, but as part of this larger logical universe. God may be needed to give concrete life to the axioms, but the rest can be just a natural outcome without separately needing God to cause each thing individually.

> some explanation is needed as to why the concept of a unicorn lacks existence as a concrete object but the concept of a lion has existence as a concrete object.

Now of course there are many many possible logical universes: Our exact universe. Our universe but anti-gravity. Our universe but unicorns popping into existence 14 billion years after a big bang. Our universe but with a personal God. All logically valid possibilities. I think this covers what you mean by physical laws being contingent. And the question is, which among these universes do we actually live, given our observations. And logically, it is possible (and as a naturalist is obviously more likely to me) that we live in a universe which started with one set of rules (the First Cause) which instantiates the ghost universe implied by those rules into a concrete reality. This is what I mean by "bursting forth". The eternal immaterial First Cause in my version is just a one set of rules (out of many possibilities), from which the universe as we see it emerges as naturally as all the patterns of a Game of Life emerges from its rules. Whether this is actually reflects the true reality or not is up for discussion, but this fits our current data, and hence disproves the exclusive theistic conclusion of the book, which is all I'm trying to establish in this conversation.

> Hydrogen has an actual (not potential) property of being burnable. > It isn't actually wet (like water) or potentially wet.

Sorry I was being sloppy with my words here.

> Do you agree that hydrogen and oxygen lose all their properties when they become part of water, due to the bond they form? Am I being fair when I say this implies that the substances themselves cease to exist as complete entities, and continue to exist only as part of something else that is now itself the complete entity?

This is again a case where I seem to agree with the sentence but our takeaways are very different, possibly because we're attaching different meanings to the words "lose all their properties" and "cease to exist". And I'll refer again to the concept of (weak) emergence to explain how I think about these things. All there is in reality is a set of base rules, which are the physical laws that govern this universe and gives properties to base entities (whatever they are). Of course we don't know the full story yet. But whatever we know so far: quantum mechanics (fields) + general relativity (spacetime), that emerge out of the base rules, gives a huge explanatory power to our ability to understand and predict how the universe works.

It is also important to realize that in our everyday conversation, we heavily use multi-level abstractions. To reuse an example I read, say my partner asks, why is there a pizza delivery at our door (and say it is), there are many possible answers. Because I ordered pizza. Because I was hungry. Because we live in a capitalistic society which allows things like pizza delivery. We can keep asking why, and will ultimately end up with a base reason: Because of the physical laws and initial conditions of the universe (or because God willed it so). So which is the correct answer? All of them. At different levels of abstractions. Hence, emergence. And of course, we have to use the right abstraction when answering questions. Saying the initial conditions of the universe as an answer to there is pizza might be okay as a geeky joke at a physics conference, but will probably only lead to an unhappy partner if used as an answer at home :)

So back to the hydrogen example. All that exists are the base rule. H/O/H2O do not "exist" in the base rules. Instead, they are emergent out of the base rules at some level of abstraction. H itself consists of protons and electrons, with protons made up by quarks etc. So when H combines with O to form H2O, think about what happens to the electrons and protons in the H and O. Do they change in any sense? No. They keep being electrons and protons. So what changed? Only the emergent properties of a group of H and O. And only at the level of everyday human experience. When we look at the H inside water and the H in a hydrogen tank, we will still find electron and protons behaving in the exact same way. So nothing has changed there. What has changed is what is in the vicinity of H. When there are only other H in the vicinity of H and O2, it has the property of being able to burn. Why? Because it has a free electron that gives H the property of being able to attract an O. But once it has succeeded on attracting an O, and thus is in the vicinity of O (not O2), the property to burn has "ceased to exist". But only in the sense that it is latent due to the presence of O. H still is a complete entity and O still is a complete entity, but in the presence of each other, some properties become latent. And sometimes electrons can actually completely cease to exist, say by colliding with a positron and turning into photons. But even here, what matters is that all these interactions are consistent according to the base rules, say of conservation laws. This is the beauty of emergence.

Now I also realize that your critique is of "reductionism". I am not particularly attached to this word if that helps. I only aim to explain why I think that the God the proofs are trying to show is only needed at the edge of the hierarchical chain. We may need God to explain how the universe started. But once it got going, physical laws can (and do) completely explain the rest. We don't need God to separately explain lions and hydrogen and gravity. Consider the idea from the book of me giving $20 to Alice. So sure, I caused Alice to have $20. Now say Alice, unknown to me, gives the $20 to Bob. Thus I caused Bob to have $20. But only indirectly. I didn't even know Bob existed. Similarly God sustains the physical laws and the physical laws sustains the next level and so on, until lions emerge out of the linear/hierarchical causal chain.

[0] https://youtu.be/6avJHaC3C2U?t=297, highly recommended video

[sdht0]

To clarify, H and O and H2O are weakly emergent entities out of the artifacts of electrons/protons, similar to the copper in your example. The behavior of electrons and protons/neutrons completely explain the behavior of atoms and molecules.

And when electrons say annihilate by combining with a positron, then the artifact in this case is the say particle physics and energy conservation, whose behavior completely explains electrons and positrons, which then are emergent entities.

The naturalist claim is this happens all the way down to the base rules, which are the core never changing artifacts out of which all properties/behavior is emergent.

[sdht0]

So it seems I completely misused the word artifact above. I'll try again.

So my naturalist view is bottom up rather than top down. It is not that H2O exists and I'm trying to explain if the parts explain the whole. I'm saying the only thing that really exists is the First Cause. Everything else is an artifact (say) originating from different arrangements of this base reality.

I think it misleads us to try start with the concept of H2O and ask, is it made of its parts or is it something more. We should instead start with the base rules and see where they end up. In our universe, we end up with electrons and protons and when they combine in different ways, the behaviors of H and O and H2O emerge. And in general, any universe that starts from the physical laws of our universe but say different initial conditions will likely have H and O and H2O in it (there are caveats but the general idea holds).

[sdht0]

In short:

Q: Why do lions exist and unicorns don't, even though it could have been otherwise?

A: Because of the physical laws and initial conditions of our universe.

Q: Why these particular physical laws and initial conditions and not something else?

A: Impersonal First Cause

Q: Could there be other universes with unicorns or anti-gravity?

A: Possible but unknown. This multiverse could still be based on an impersonal First Cause.

My takeaway remains the same: A personal God is a logically valid possibility, but not a logical necessity, contrary to what the book claims.

[geye1234]

Again, it will be 2-3 more days before I can reply. Thank you!

[sdht0]

Yeah for sure. Money and kids, as you had warned :)

[geye1234]

Ok, I'm going to try and put your argument in my own words, since I have been so eager to make my own points that I have probably been (inadvertently) attacking a straw-man at times. Please let me know if the following is accurate:

There is no reason to think that the FC is personal. One reason for this is that there is no reason to think that the FC can choose what it causes. The fact that lions exist and unicorns don't may be because the FC is choosing to cause lions and not unicorns, but there is no reason to think this. How could we know whether it could cause unicorns but doesn't, or simply can't cause unicorns? And in a universe where unicorns popped into existence at random points in history, the same would apply -- the FC would be causing such things, but how would we know that it is choosing to do so? Could random unicorns not be 'bursting forth', in the same way that laws-of-science-obeying lions already are?

[I am not clear which of the next two paragraphs reflects your view, since they seem to contradict, and I think you've said things that could imply either:]

Even in the absence of a FC, logical possibilities (concepts) would still exist. Given these concepts, and regardless of the existence of the FC, the entire history of the universe (including whatever caused the Big Bang) would also exist hypothetically, since the interaction of every object with every other object would already be 'mapped out'. The script would be written, so to speak; the source code would be written even if it were never compiled and executed. Even if the universe never came into existence, its full history would already be theoretically written, given logic and concepts. Logic/concepts lead to the entire theoretical history of the universe, just as the axioms of geometry lead to the details of triangles. The FC's role is limited to making this theoretical history an actual history.

[OR]

Even in the absence of a FC, logical possibilities (concepts) would still exist. The FC is one set of rules (or chooses one set of rules), out of infinite logical possibilities, that governs the universe's behavior. Given these concepts, and this set of rules, the entire history of the universe (including whatever caused the Big Bang) would also exist hypothetically, since the interaction of every object with every other object would already be 'mapped out'. Etc etc. The FC, as a ruleset, governs the behaviour of the 'theoretical' universe, AND makes the theoretical univese actual.

It is therefore false to say that the FC in some sense chooses to make the lion exist but not the unicorn. The FC simply brings the ruleset, and the subsequent theoretical history of the universe that necessarily follows from the ruleset, into actuality. OR: The FC is simply a ruleset that governs things' behaviour. IN BOTH CASES: the ruleset determines everything that will happen subsequently, including the existence of the lion & gravity and the non-existence of the unicorn & anti-gravity.

Is this a fair summary of your views, or have I unwittingly misrepresented them?

More to follow on water and hydrogen when I get another spare minute...

[sdht0]

Quite well put, thank you.

> And in a universe where unicorns popped into existence at random points in history, the same would apply -- the FC would be causing such things, but how would we know that it is choosing to do so?

So this particular event, if it happened, would actually be in favor of a personal God! For lions, we can trace a history from big bang to earth to life to evolution to lions, everything consistently explained by emergence. Popping into existence would violate conservation laws for example and would make it more likely that a personal God is causing unicorns, not impersonal laws.

The second paragraph seems closer to what I have in mind. But I'm not sure what the contradiction is between the two paragraphs. To me, "the FC's role is limited to making this theoretical history an actual history" seems to be a variation of "FC is one set of rules out of infinite logical possibilities, that governs the universe's behavior." Perhaps you can clarify a bit more?

The bigger picture: my discussion of logical possibilities and FC as rules is mainly in response to "certain concepts (lions, gravity) are willed into existence, and continue to be so willed here and now; and certain other concepts (anti-gravity, unicorns) are not." or "there is nothing about a lion as such that makes it real." as you wrote a while back. And I am positing that instead of saying "God causes their existence from moment to moment", we can say: the axiomatic rules (physical laws + initial conditions) of our universe causes their existence from moment to moment. And everything else was to try show how axiomatic rules can cause the concept of lions without referring to one particular arrangement of particles or something in human minds.

Side note: even if there is a personal God, it seems to still be the case that God chose to create a universe based on a set of rules, because it is consistent with what we observe, right? A personal God can still intervene as He wishes (and presumably did at least once), in the same way that I can arbitrarily intervene at any generation of the Game of Life to change the state without any regard to the rules. But in general, I only need to make sure the computer is running, but otherwise let the rules do their thing. In the same way, we can say God is letting the universe do its thing based on its rules. But of course in this case, He can change the rules anytime, say by bringing unicorns into existence tomorrow even if they are not implied by the rules.

> IN BOTH CASES: the ruleset determines everything that will happen subsequently, including the existence of the lion & gravity and the non-existence of the unicorn & anti-gravity.

Yes. "Why lions and not unicorns" is explained by axiomatic rules of our universe, and "why these axiomatic rules and not something else" is explained by the First Cause.

[geye1234]

To briefly summarise what I wrote yesterday:

Let P be "observation shows us that the universe 'unfolds' predictably"

Let Q be "the FC lacks free will"

You are claiming that P implies Q, and !P implies (or at least suggests) !Q.

But I am claiming that there is no connection between P and Q. P may be true, and Q may be true, but there is no necessary connection between the two. P is an empirical observation, but you cannot thereby claim that Q is an empirically-derived statement. And therefore, I think, we have no reason to believe Q.

Hopefully this very short summary clarifies things, and not the opposite :)

[sdht0]

Thanks. Yes nice and helpful summary of your earlier comment. I'll respond more later, but briefly myself:

From my earlier comments: "I'm not saying that the First Cause is definitely impersonal. I'm only claiming that given our current observation as of today, impersonal physical laws can explain all of our observations"

To use your format:

W: Observe that world has causes, parts, etc.

FC: Eternal First Cause as a brute-force fact.

M: FC has will.

N: FC does not have will.

Claim0: W -> FC.

Claim1: W -> M.

Claim2: W -> N.

I think we both agree on Claim0.

The proofs in the book (and you) are asserting Claim1. W is true, hence M is true. In other words, FC has to have free will in creating this world.

Me: !Claim2. So no, I'm NOT claiming FC has to have a lack of free will. I agree with you, that doesn't follow.

Me, instead: W -> (M or N). That's all. If you agree with this, then my job here is done. The book claims: "The real debate is not between atheism and theism." My objective is to show this statement is not true. Atheism is very much still on the table.

Thus, given the observations as of today, we cannot assert Claim1, as the book is doing. Why not? Because we have NOT eliminated N, as it also fits the observations. So no, not everyone should turn into a theist. (But we cannot assert Claim2 either.)

> There is no necessary connection between the two.

There is no necessary connection. But there is a possible connection. P from your comment can explain W (all that FC is is the unfolding of rules) and if so, then Q/N will be implied.

Where does that leave us?

Today: Either M or N is true, but we don't know which. Thus, naturalism is as valid a stance as theism. Neither can claim the other is false. We can only talk in terms of how likely it is that M or N is true. As a naturalist, my claim is that N is likely because we can explain the world using rules. We don't need a Divine explanation. Not definitely, but possibly. And that it helps to adopt something like Bayesian reasoning when thinking about matters such as these.

Tomorrow: God does a (second) revelation. M is then shown to be true and N is false.

Tomorrow: Not likely but possible, science figures out how the universe is self-sustaining. N is then shown to be true, and M false.

[geye1234]

Thanks. I'll wait for your full reply, but very briefly:

My position is that the existence/non-existence of regular laws, and the personality/impersonality of the FC, have nothing to do with one another. As I stated earlier, event E would be compatible with the FC's personality/impersonality, and so is the universe we currently observe.

I don't believe this is your position (and admit my precis of your views earlier may have been inaccurate). I think your position is that observation of the universe's regularity affects the question of God's personality, hence your insistence that this is an empirical question (which I deny). You said:

> ... as a naturalist, I'm saying that given the laws of our universe (whatever they are) and the initial conditions, lions exist and unicorns don't and even God cannot change that. I'll freely agree that the former is from logic and hence necessarily true. But the later is just from empirical observations.

And further up the thread :

> ...it's all empirical. Yes, tomorrow unicorns could start popping into existence and then we'd have to revise what we think of the universe. But until then (this is crucial, my claims are contingent on observations), apriori natural laws seem to be able to explain everything we see. No personal God needed.

And more recently

> So this particular event [unicorn popping into existence], if it happened, would actually be in favor of a personal God!

and

> As a naturalist, my claim is that N is likely because we can explain the world using rules. We don't need a Divine explanation.

All these quotes indicate that you think that the empirical observation P (in my prev comment) at least suggests Q (which = N). Or alternatively, that you think that the truth of P undermines the need for M.

Again, my position is that P and M vs N have nothing to do with one another.

(P and W are different, and we have been using terminology more like P for the past dozen or so comments, hence I discuss P here rather than W.)

[geye1234]

I think the contradiction is as follows:

In the first paragraph, the ruleset is distinct from the FC; the FC simply actualizes the ruleset. It makes the theoretical history an actual history. In the second paragraph, the ruleset is the FC. (If I could, I would strike out the part "or chooses one set of rules", since it muddies the issue, and makes the second appear more like the first).

So case 1: the FC actualizes the rules, but is distinct from them; in case 2, the FC is identified with the rules. To me that seems a contradiction.

> So this particular event, if it happened, would actually be in favor of a personal God! For lions, we can trace a history from big bang to earth to life to evolution to lions, everything consistently explained by emergence. Popping into existence would violate conservation laws for example and would make it more likely that a personal God is causing unicorns, not impersonal laws.

I don't know that this follows. Suppose the unicorn popped into existence (let's call this event E). There would be nothing to stop you saying that before time T1, the FC was unable to perform E; but at T1, it was able to do so. And you could say the same thing about conservation of energy, the consistency of emergence, etc etc. So the existence of events such as E would not imply a "willing" FC. You could equally well say that events such as E are, nonetheless, acting according to the FC's necessary actions.

Likewise, the fact that things behave in observably regular ways does not, of itself, imply that the FC is bound to act in a certain way. I would be wrong to use this as an argument in favour of the FC's freedom. Like if I were to say "we know God exists because things act in certain ways, and therefore we can see God is constantly willing them to do so", it would obviously be faulty. And similarly, if event E happened, it would be no argument in my favour.

So there is no connection between the regularity of the universe, and necessity on the FC's part.

So your position cannot arise from empirical considerations; and therefore the following statement, insofar as it claims to be empirical, is faulty:

> given the axioms of mathematics, 2+2=4 is true and not even God can change that. In the same way, as a naturalist, I'm saying that given the laws of our universe (whatever they are) and the initial conditions, lions exist and unicorns don't and even God cannot change that. I'll freely agree that the former is from logic and hence necessarily true. But the later is just from empirical observations.

There is a further problem, though. Let's grant your position that

> the axiomatic rules (physical laws + initial conditions) of our universe causes [lions'] existence from moment to moment.

Of all the possible rulesets that could exist, why this one and not another? (Or if multiverses exist, why this ruleset in our universe?) There are infinite (or at least very many) logical possibilities and therefore infinite or very many possible rulesets. Why this one? We agree that there is no logical necessity about the ruleset being what it is. For me, it's easy to say that God willed such a ruleset out of the infinite ones He could have willed. (To will something just is to bring about X instead of Y, where X contradicts Y, but where X and Y are both possibilities prior to the actualisation of one of them.) Since you have no recourse to willing, what is it about the FC that makes it be (or makes it actualise) one set of rules instead another? Why is it X rather than Y?

We agree that logic is prior to the existence of the universe, so any answer implying that logic doesn't apply here will not be accepted :-)

On that subject, do you think logic precedes the FC? I don't think your position allows logic to be 'downstream', so to speak, of the FC, so I think your argument implies this. But I want to hear your thoughts on this before continuing.

I had to write this in a hurry so hopefully I haven't missed something. Again, I haven't forgotten the talk of hydrogen and oxygen, hopefully will have time to return to it at some point :-)

[sdht0]

Okay I'll try to lay out my reasoning from base up. I hope you'll find some time to indulge my brain dump and let me know at which point we begin to diverge in our reasoning.

---

We can only be sure of two things with 100% certainty.

G1: "I" exist.

G2: logical truths.

Everything else is contingent, right? We observe certain things with our senses. And we're trying to surmise what it is. How it works. What's causing it. Etc. And any knowledge we gain can never be given 100% certainty, can it? Because our senses are fallible. Can we guarantee we are not living in a simulation, being experimented on by showing Divine events such as a resurrection just to see how we react? Can we guarantee that we are not a brain in vat being fed signals that generate our universe. Can we guarantee there is no unknown unknowns we can't even think of because of our vantage point in reality? I don't think we can. And until we can eliminate these logically valid causes, we can only talk about how likely one possibility is over another. We can try to do the best we can, but we have to be humble. But as long as we are dependent on our own senses, no other knowledge we gain can ever go up to 100% certainty apart from G1 and G2. I hope there is not much to disagree about here?

(For the purpose of our discussion, let's eliminate the other possibilities and assume that the world we see is "real" with say 99.99% certainty. Thus G1 implies "I" and world we see.)

Using G1 and G2, we can come to a conclusion with 100% certainty that:

C1: An eternal First Cause exists.

---

What piqued my interest in this conversation was the book's claim that a personal God can be shown with 100% certainty, just from logic. If true, that'd be amazing. We'd settle the question of God once and for all. I won't be able to deny logical truths.

But I don't think the book succeeds. It shows FC for sure. But it does not succeed in showing that FC has free will. My claim is that there are still (at least) two possibilities for FC: FC is a personal God or FC is a set of impersonal rules. Both these possibilities can explain everything we see in the world. And our quest is to try figure out which one reflects the True nature of FC.

---

> Of all the possible rulesets that could exist, why this one and not another?

If you notice, G1 is also an observation. By which I mean that it could have been the case that I didn't exist, right? Which means even FC doesn't have a 100% certain reason to exist. Given G1, FC definitely exists. But:

P1: it is logically possible that nothing (neither I nor FC) existed.

I'd love it if you could show that P1 isn't a valid possibility.

So given P1, we can then ask the question: why does FC exist in the first place, right? From our vantage point, we are asking, what causes/sustains us and the world we see. The answer is FC. But what causes FC? Well:

C2: FC is a brute force fact of reality.

Given G1, FC always has to have existed. We can ask "why FC?", but is has no answer. I think you'd agree to this?

So let's say FC=God. That is, God is real and He caused G1. We can ask the question: why does God exists? And the answer is C2. He just does. I've heard it put this way: that God is His own cause. So the takeaway is that C2 is valid: base reality FC can (and must) exist without any reason attached to it. Makes sense?

Thus, when you ask: "why this one and not another?", my answer is the same: C2. That it is a brute-force fact of reality. We cannot expect a reasonable answer to the question because there isn't any. The difference is what we are applying C2 to. Theism applies it to FC=God. Naturalism applies it to FC=base ruleset.

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> So case 1: the FC actualizes the rules, but is distinct from them; in case 2, the FC is identified with the rules. To me that seems a contradiction.

Right sorry. The difference to me is which rules we are talking about. One is the rules of our universe. General relativity. Quantum mechanics. Whatever base rules lie underneath them. However, I am thinking in more general terms. As I said in the first paragraph, it is not necessarily the case that there is FC and then our universe, right? It could be the case that our universe is a simulation in supercomputers of another universe. It could be the case that I am a brain in vat being fed signals that match the rules of our universe. More realistically, we could be one out of many universes originating from eternal inflation. And FC would then be some base rules causing base realities, inside which the rules for the universe we actually see embedded in an emergent way.

So more generally, I think of: FC -> emergence1 -> emergence2 -> ... -> our universe -> physics -> ... -> lions.

I don't know if you agree yet, the idea is that the explanations for the world we see comes in layers of what I am calling emergence. Why lions? Because biology. Biology can completely explain lions, except the question: why biology? Then we say because chemistry. Why chemistry? Because physics. Why physics? Because FC. Why FC? Brute force fact. (Note that there could be more layers between physics and FC, as per above.)

The important takeaway I want to convey is that FC can be just an impersonal set of rules out of which everything emerges

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> So the existence of events such as E would not imply a "willing" FC. You could equally well say that events such as E are, nonetheless, acting according to the FC's necessary actions.

Words are tricky. Especially in discussions like this one. When I said "in favor of", I meant more in a probabilistic manner. E wouldn't imply with 100% certainty that there is a personal God. But it will make Him more likely than it is currently.

Let me put it this way. Take Conway's Game of Life (GoL). We humans created this "GoL universe" that runs on a grid based on a simple set of rules. Say I am running a GoL instance on my computer with an initial generation G0. G0 is a choice. There are infinite number of possibilities for G0 and I chose one of these to start with. But as soon as I fixed G0, the state of G1 to G-infinity is then automatically implied, right? I don't have to then setup G1, G2, etc. I can just let it run according to the rules. But I can intervene at any generation if I want to. At any generation Gi, I can modify the state in a arbitrary manner without regard to the rules and the state of Gi-1.

Now let's posit some observers embedded inside GoL. Say they start observing at generation k, such that 0<k<i. And say they don't know the base rules when they start. What will they see? For generations Gk to Gi-1, they might eventually be able to figure out that the state changes in a highly regular manner and thus surmise what the base rules are. However at Gi, they will see that the rules they thought were true break down.

So then reality for these observers could be 3 possibilities. Reminder that this is an analogy, so focus is on the ideas rather than the details.

P1: FC=I, sdht0. I setup the computer and choose to run GoL instead of say chess, and I chose the state of G0. This explains why the rules broke down at Gi.

P2: FC=rules of GoL + G0 (+ the computer). In this case, I sdht0, don't exist. Base reality started with G0.

P3: FC=rules of GoL + G0 + unrelated changes at Gi not implied by G0. This basically implies a discontinuous function for the rules.

I hope you can see how the analogy maps to our universe. (The random change at Gi is the popping in of unicorns.) So yes, as you said, we can never eliminate P3. But my point is: say we're only choosing between P1 and P2, theism vs naturalism, the fact that unicorns popped into existence would make P1 more likely. Conversely, the fact the universe has never broken its regularity would imply P2 is highly likely, because then God will be an extra things that we would not need to explain what we see. But none of the cases can be asserted with 100% certainty.

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> Likewise, the fact that things behave in observably regular ways does not, of itself, imply that the FC is bound to act in a certain way.

Again, "bound to act" is a claim of certainty that I'm not making. I'm only saying it makes it highly possible that regular rules is all there is to it.